John Hughes

Please indicate past awards won/recognitions:
PGA Section Teacher of the Year, GRAA Top 100 Growth of the Game Teaching Professional, Golf Digest Best in State, Other (Indicate specific awards below in 3-a)

Other awards won:
Gof Tips Magazine Top 25 Instructor

Total number of individual lessons given per year:
Male: 400+
Female: 100+
Junior: 300+

Total number of individual clinics given per year:
50+

Please indicate any Growth of the Game initiatives your facility/academy has launched over the past year (please give specifics on such programs):
2024 saw me move to a new facility that had very little growth of the game activities. It also provided me the opportunity to create and implement growth of the game activities at a new facility at the beginning of its growth of the game journey.

My new facility in Orlando is the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate. Instructional services have been provided by a well-recognized instructor and his staff for over 23 years. After moving to a new facility over two years ago, Omni ChampionsGate was left with little to no instructional services to offer its guests or the members of the club. When I first set foot on property in January of this year, all they had was a website page that of instructional services that was not marketed to members or guests. And virtually no one to provide the services.

After being there a month, I was asked by the facility management to start assisting them with nurturing their young professional staff. Two PGA Associate Members had interest in teaching with almost no experience doing so. I invited them both to shadow me as often as they could. As well as providing them with free coaching to help them with their games. As the spring continued, both Associates began to rearrange their schedules and sacrifice personal time to accommodate the few requests for private lessons that was coming from the hotel. Each Associate credited their time with me with providing them the confidence needed to start teaching lessons at a competent level.

Coaching these two individuals has led to the facility management asking me to take on a bigger role, assisting them with fine tuning their instruction offerings. As well as how to better promote the programs they do offer. That process began as I left for my seasonal position in May. It is continued throughout the summer with me drafting and implementing a new instructional services menu. As well as creating an associate professional training program. The training program will provide all associates at the facility a choice and opportunity grow as golf teachers. And ultimately be able to say yes to all requests from resort guests for instructional services.

In addition to creating new programs and nurturing new instructors, I offered several beginner private and group instruction services. This was in addition to my normal offering of private coaching to more experienced golfers. One of these programs is a redesign of a popular beginner program that takes a beginner golfer on a journey from the hole or green, backwards to the tee box. I call it “Play Golf Now”.

Play Golf Now for an individual is 5 one-hour lessons strategically scheduled to allow for practice time between each lesson. The breakdown of the 5 lessons is:
• Hour One – Putting
o Learning to put the ball in the middle of the club face.
o Then learning to control distance.
o Followed understanding how distance dictates direction.
• Hour Two – Chipping
o Chipping basics to assist with getting closer to the hole when off the green.
o And blending chipping and pitching together on the golf course.
• Hour Three – Pitching
o Focusing on bigger swing movements while understanding low point of the swing.
o If successful with pitch shots, the hour can include green side bunkers.
• Hour Four – Full Swing
o Irons and Hybrids
o The last third of the hour is spent on the course merging the new skills together to play a golf hole from a yardage the new golfer can be successful with.
• Hour Five – Driver and Putting it all Together on the Course

The same format I use with groups of 4 or more, incorporated the assistance of one of the PGA Associates at the facility. This group program will become a staple of the new instructional menu.

The last main component I implemented in the spring and will continue to do throughout the balance of 2024 and into future years are complementary skill assessments. These assessments are offered to facility members. And when available, to hotel guests. Skill assessments include the use of FlightScope and its Skills App in a game type setting. The golfer is encouraged to hit specific targets as close as they can within a given time frame. After completing the assessment, I provide the golfer an objective measurement of their current skills. As well as a video of them performing their skills. We discuss what is considered low hanging fruit for them to make immediate improvements. As well as what a custom coaching program with me would include. This program has become very popular and I estimate I provided this service to a minimal of 150 people at the facility so far.

My second facility is McLemore Resort located in Lookout Mountain GA. It is a private club converting to become a private resort. Over the past two years, I have been experimenting with various programs that could potentially work for not only the members but for guests of their new hotel. Those experiments produced data that has provided me and the ownership of the facility a glimpse into what could potentially become and a destination resort for golf improvement.

A good portion of my time while at McLemore this summer has been the development of a holistic golf academy program. Golfers who use and visit the facility include two types of members, guests of the hotel, as well as regional, national, and international visitors. The new instructional menu is a blend for all categories of golfers that is simple to understand while offering diversity to each category of golfer who participates in a program at McLemore.

As asked by Omni ChampionsGate, an instructor qualification and training program was implemented over the summer at McLemore. It included only two PGA Associates due to other commitments the resort made priority of this year. This program will grow in scope in 2025 and will be mandatory for any of McLemore’s 8 PGA associates to complete before conducting or performing any growth of the game for golf improvement program on property.

Group golf school programs were implemented once a month through a contract with an outside provider. These programs yielded a minimum of nine golfers per session. Each 2-day session included basic instruction of all facets of the game period as well as nine holes of on course instruction. Free follow up after each golf school day has been provided each participant. With most of the participants taking advantage of the offer.

Private golf schools will be a staple at this high-end resort. Due to lack of marketing of any programs in 2024 the expected number of participants fell short of predictions. However, the quality of each program as well as the positive feedback each participant provided has been more then what we anticipated. And therefore, we are judging this year’s private golf school programs a success.

Several junior clinics were held at the facility throughout the summer. As well as ladies’ clinics for members, ladies’ clinics for hotel guests, and other activities to attract participants from the greater Chattanooga area. In addition, myself and the other PGA associate who assists me were present twice a week for members play days. During warm up we were available to provide a boost of confidence. We also rode the course taking notes of various golfers’ experiences and sharing those with them after play. This was to gain trust of the membership and to engage them with the idea of improving their golf games more so than they had done in the past.

Plans are underway for 2025 to include PGA reach programs such as PGA hope and PGA Junior League. Dates are already planned to host ladies only clinics. As well as a summer Junior Golf school.

Instructional services and growth of the game activities at McLemore is in its infancy. It’s an honor and privilege to be selected to create from scratch and instructional services menu that will serve the needs of all who visit and are members of McLemore for years to come. As well as to continue to pass on the skills and knowledge I’ve been fortunate to obtain over the years to the up-and-coming instructors who will continue to share this information with golfers for years to come.

Please share any programming you have made to keep your customers & students engaged:
Keeping clients engaged and retained his priority number one for me. And for the instructors that I associate with my brand and the resorts I serve. It can be a very easy task if time is set aside to do so after each client has completed their program.

Be very simple but lost way to engage and retain clientele is taking the time to hand write a thank you card to each client I serve. It may be considered old school, but it’s very much appreciated by all my clients. I implemented this practice approximately 14 months ago. And it has garnered numerous referrals from clients I have served. The personalization of receiving the handwritten note from your coach is something I remember from my childhood. It inspired me to continue my journey. Is that genuine the feeling of me to my clients then I will continue this practice until my hands can no longer hold a pen.

For golf school students, I provide 30 days of three follow up. For the client, it means they can text, e-mail, or call me at their discretion anytime within 30 days of the completion of their golf school program. They are also encouraged to send me videos that I can analyze and compare to the videos taken during their program. Free follow up has led to many clients becoming virtual coaching clients. As well as being able to share information at critical times when most coaches are not available. I have been doing this for over 13 years and the strategy is proven to be more than successful.

I offer the same follow up to all regular clients within coaching membership programs. Because of the client’s commitment level, I feel it is necessary that I be available to them no matter what time or day it might be. Implementing this practice has allowed me to continue to coach elite athletes across the globe. My international clients know that if I’m up late they will receive an immediate reply. And if I wake up to a request, it’s the first thing I tackle each morning.

I’ve also begun to market virtual coaching sessions more so than ever before. Using the golf live platform, I am now able to provide a more comprehensive virtual coaching session to each of my virtual clients. Whether it be live through the app or through a prerecorded video analysis I send to each client. I anticipate my clientele list to grow through virtual coaching because of its convenience. Nothing beats hands on personal coaching. But when that is not obtainable, conducting virtual coaching through a robust platform such as golf live provides me and my clients the opportunity to stay engaged with each other no matter the time or location we might be in.